Bill G.: This is certainly interesting. I served on a pharmacy and therapeutic health commission for many years. And one of the xx we were always struck with regarding the metanalysis was the absence of negative studies. Actually, with freedom of information, it has become apparent that the pharmaceutical industry sponsors many of the studies. They pay many of the authors not to publish. This was brought to light–and they don’t allow this anymore.  But many of the metanalyses you read purposefully exclude negative studies. The studies benefit the outcomes desired by the pharmaceutical companies.  There are credible studies. However, when you aggregate them, they exclude outcomes that weren’t in favor of the pharmaceutical companies, and contradictory findings from the studies which the pharmaceutical companies sponsor.

Bill B: So, we began to blame the person rather than the industry. The problem is that you eat too much. Or you eat the wrong food.  Rather than recognizing what Mitch brough up in a previous session.  The agri-pharma coalition is the major contributor to the problems we are facing. So, we were looking for the culprit in the wrong place.

Mitch: And they are making money. We all have retirement accounts that are bolstered by these industries. It is important that we open our eyes and see what’s happening.

Bil B: There is another point to be made here. There was an informative article published in the Atlantic last month.  It was essentially the history of Obesity.  It identified all of the different treatments that have been offered over many years.  Each of those treatments raised a massive amount of money for the company that provided it.  Then, the failure of this specific treatment was actually a success because the company could then come out with another treatment. “I know that that one didn’t work, but this one will. You need to try this one!” So, they kept coming up with repetition of failure. That didn’t slow things down at all.  Today, there is Novartis.  There is a massive amount of money there.

Perry: Bill, you raise an important point about these failures. I am struck by the interface between obesity and all of the dynamics that might impact that and the question of nutrition. Quite frankly, from an old guy perspective, we don’t know much about the right thing to do about nutrition or about what we should be eating.  A lot of things have been popular over the years. A lot of studies have been done over the years to tell us what we should be eating.  And, in my opinion, none of them.  Have panned out in the long run.  I can give you an example.  I finished my residency at Loma Linda. Their culture is built around vegetarianism.  My chair was a very reluctant vegetarian.  And when the Adventist study came out that reported that vegetarians live longer and are healthier (cardio-vascular health), he said this is not really true, they just feel like they are living longer because they never get anything good to eat! [laughter] So, that’s one thing. The other thing is that we talk about what we should be eating and this year we are supposed to eat this and next year we are supposed to eat that.  There are a lot of studies showing that people who are trying to be healthy by being vegans –a significant number of them have major nutritional deficiencies and problem along that line. Again, the Loma Linda population may have great cardio-vascular health, but their dental health is abysmal.  One of their major public health initiatives is to deal with the fact that they substitute sugar for so much of their diet. As a result, they have major dental problems.  Sugar is the enemy within that population.

Before this call, I was just watching some of the Olympics.  They were talking about the food in the Olympic village.  The athletes were complaining about it. Because they were trying to offer so much vegetarian stuff that the Olympians are not getting the protein and food support that they need. So, they are leaving the village and going out to eat to get what they feel that they need. At the same time, they are shown going to the French market where there is 140 varieties of butter at the market. And how (not withstanding their diets being high in butter and fat), there is less obesity among the French.  So, I am struck that we are feeling different parts of the Elephant. I don’t think we have a good picture of what the real issues are.